a bleeding purple utah jazz blog

@gs: Opponent Game Thread Highlighs

Jerry Sloan and Phil Johnson have been around for so long that they have the most obscure connections to not just GSW head coach Keith Smart, but tons of other coaches around the league.

Phil, for example, was Pistons head coach John Kuester’s first NBA coach. Rick Adelman was teammates with Jerry on the Bulls, and then was coached by Phil in Kansas City. And as we all know by now, Toronto’s Jay Triano was once cut by the Jazz in favor of a rookie named John Stockton. These examples, of course, do not take into account Jerry and Phil having coached against probably ten head coaches when they were still players.

Here’s a picture from a game between Indiana and the Soviet Union national team in 1985, featuring Brian Sloan and Arvydas Sabonis:

The last time we visited the GSW game thread (at the end of last season), they were rather preoccupied with cheering for tanking and rooting on Sacramento that night so that the Kings would end up with a better record than GS, and hopefully get a lower draft pick. Tonight, they were entirely focused on the suckitude that was the game at hand:

I’ve always suspected Jefferson doesn’t always work hard enough to get inside shots, even when he’s supposed to be posting up. When he gets himself to <5 feet from the rim, he has excellent touch around the hoop, but it seems like if a player works hard on him early to keep him from getting to that spot (and it's not like Jefferson has great quickness to consistently beat good D or anything), he'll settle for those inefficient jumpers he has a penchant for taking instead of putting in extra work to try to get to the rim.by Missing Barry on Nov 6, 2010 4:29 AM CST

The Jazz coaching is VASTLY superior as well as the general culture for the Jazz. I don’t think that team will let him choose to suck.by Naticus on Nov 6, 2010 7:32 AM CST